Not Your Average 'Zombie' Flick...

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2008)

Danny Boyle is a true gem: a director who gives you no idea what he's going to come up with next. Crossing over with an eerie ease from Hitchcockian thriller (SHALLOW GRAVE) to a funny, gritty, nauseatingly disturbing drama about addiction (TRAINSPOTTING), when I heard that he might be doing a 'horror' film, I couldn't wait to see the result. Actually, with the exception of the startling trailer for the movie, which gave surprisingly little away, I thought I was all ready to tackle Boyle's version of zombie culture.
As it turns out, I wasn't.
I don't remember the last time I gasped and cringed that much at a movie, much less jumped out of my seat, (which I did several times - something that happens VERY rarely these days.) Much in the way that he less channeled Hitchcock in SHALLOW GRAVE than redefined that director's paradigm of what a suspense thriller is, 28 DAYS LATER doesn't really ape the work of George Romero or Lucio Fulci. Rather it re-energizes the genre by giving us something that, technically speaking, really isn't a "zombie" film more than it is a 'plague' movie. Relocate Stephen King's THE STAND in present-day London, and re-populate it with British characters and you're almost close to the feel of what it is.
Written by Alex Garland (author of Boyle's ambitiously flawed THE BEACH), LATER'S opening takes its cues from both the Romero and Roger Corman playbooks. Three wrongheaded militant animal activists break into a science lab with the intention of freeing the animals there from the barbarity of medical experimentation. What they don't realize is that they're not only too late, but they are about to loose something upon the world that was never meant to get out...
And then, 28 DAYS LATER -
A young patient in hospital named Jim (Cillian Murphy in his first major role) awakens in his hospital bed to find himself alone. Not just in his room, but in the hospital, in the surrounding neighborhood, in the city...maybe even in the country. THE WORLD, perhaps. You are as disoriented, startled and scared as he is, and concerned FOR him as Boyle allows you to practically walk in his shoes for a bit and wonder what you would do in his place.
Jim goes looking for other people. And he does find them, as they also find him. But the first ones he sees moving about aren't really people anymore...
To say more is to spoil the industrial-strength effect this movie will have on your nerves if you haven't seen it before. All you need to know is that there are two kinds of people in this terrifying new world: the infected and the uninfected. And the line between the two groups is as fragile as a drop of blood...
It adds to the sense of heightened realism that the cast (much like famed horror classics like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) is comprised almost entirely of unknown actors. Murphy was only a few years away from RED EYE and BATMAN BEGINS, and Naomie Harris's breakout role in the "PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN" sequel was still in the not-too-distant future. Only HARRY POTTER'S Brendan Gleason is sort of recognizable, and robust as ever as a survivor trying to protect his daughter from the ravages of what has become Hell on Earth.
Zombie film or not, whatever you want to classify it as, 28 DAYS LATER is definitely not for the squeamish. Fast, frightening and ferocious, there are scenes of brutality that are not gratuitous by any means, but they're strategically placed at parts of the story when you will least expect them, and they have all the more impact as you come to learn about Jim and his new "friends", and you start to give a damn about what happens to them.
True, as noted in other reviews, the movie does start to lose steam around the middle of Act Three, and the controversial ending may leave some of you feeling unsatisfied. (Don't forget to review the alternative endings on the comprehensive DVD.)
But this is still worth more than just a passing glance. It might very well qualify as a present- day classic. And though Boyle has drifted away from horror again for the moment, I can't wait to see what he cooks up when he returns to it...